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Ron has been to orbit.

Who is Ron Garan?

Fragile Oasis founder Ron Garan, who lived and worked in space for 178 days, is a highly decorated Fighter Pilot and Test Pilot, Explorer, Entrepreneur and Humanitarian who believes that appropriately designed and targeted social enterprise can solve many of the problems facing our world. Ron is currently the Chief ...

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Borders From Space

I have always said, “you can’t see any borders from space.” Apparently I was wrong.

On the evening of August 17, 2011, I “flew” to the Cupola, the windowed observatory of the International Space Station, to shoot some photographs for a time-lapse photography project I have been working on for Fragile Oasis.

Before beginning the sequence, I took some practice shots to verify camera settings. As I was about to delete them, something caught my eye. In one of the pictures, a very obvious illuminated line snaked across a large landmass for hundreds of miles.

Initially, I wrote it off as a strange exposure from moonlight reflecting on a river. But, I was intrigued and did some investigating, only to learn this was not a natural reflection at all. Rather, it is a human-made border between India and Pakistan to control passage between the two countries.

This picture depicts the illuminated human made border between India and Pakistan, seen from the north from onboard the International Space Station on August 17, 2011. To the left New Delhi, and the cities of Jaipur and Jodpur. At the right edge: Karachi in Pakistan. The most striking feature is something that is frequently thought not to be visible from space - a border.

Realizing what this picture depicted had a big impact on me. When viewed from space, Earth almost always looks beautiful and peaceful. However, this picture is an example of human-made changes to the landscape in response to a threat, clearly visible from space. This was a big surprise to me.

Since the beginning of human spaceflight fifty years ago, astronauts have reflected on how peaceful, beautiful, and fragile the Earth looks from space. These reflections are not clichés that astronauts say because it feels good. It is truly moving to look at the Earth from space.

The point is not that we can look down at the Earth and see a human-made border between India and Pakistan. The point is that we can look down at that same area and feel empathy for the struggles that all people face. We can look down and realize that we are all riding through the Universe together on this spaceship we call Earth, that we are all interconnected, that we are all in this together, that we are all family.

When we look down at the Earth, we are faced with a sobering contradiction. On one hand, we can clearly see the indescribable beauty of the planet we have been given. On the other hand -- the unfortunate reality of life on our beautiful planet for a significant portion of its inhabitants.

It saddens me and compels me to action when I realize that we have the resources and technology to overcome almost all of the challenges facing our planet, yet nearly 2 billion people do not have access to clean water, countless go to bed hungry every night, and many die from preventable and curable diseases.

I believe that we live in a world where the possibilities are limited only by our imagination and our will to act. It is within our power to eliminate the suffering and poverty that exist on our planet.

The answer is quite simple - just do something. The challenges of the world are really about how each of us individually responds to them. In other words, to what extent does humanity, on a person-to-person basis, commit to making a positive difference, no matter how small, or how big?

The vision for Fragile Oasis is to be a vehicle to effect real change. We want to provide a means for people and organizations to collaborate and develop synergy toward overcoming our planet’s challenges. We want to encourage people to make a difference, and we want to help organizations that are striving to make the world a better place reach their goals.

In short, the goal of Fragile Oasis is to help reduce that sobering contradiction that we see when we look at the Earth. We want to help those who are striving to improve life on Earth so that it is not only visibly beautiful, but life is beautiful for all.

Guided by the unique orbital perspective of men and women who live and work in Space, our vision is for Fragile Oasis to help people and organizations work together to overcome the challenges facing humanity on Earth.